Everyone knows Alvin and the Chipmunks. The dulcet high-pitched voices of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore have been entertaining children for over sixty years now. Even beyond just selling novelty records, Alvin and the Chipmunks have become a bona fide media titan. From animated TV shows to live-action movies, from merchandising to even video games, these chipmunks are everywhere. Their appeal seems as timeless today as it did when they first began appearing on record covers in 1958. And yet… something doesn’t quite add up, according to some rather creative fans. They believe the first live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks is hiding a fourth brother.
In every version of Alvin and the Chipmunks, there have always been three chipmunks. Even some of the most obscure episodes of the animated show have only three chipmunks in Alvin’s band. As much as cartoons of the era loved adding new characters to a show out of the blue, the Chipmunks avoided this fate, somehow.
But what if there ever was another member working behind the scenes? After all, there’s some compelling evidence that might indicate that there was, in fact, a fourth voice in some of the Chipmunks’ choruses.
In one particular scene of the 2007 live-action flick, we can clearly hear that there is a fourth voice that doesn’t belong to Alvin, Simon, or Theodore. Could this be evidence of a fourth Chipmunk having been a member of the bad at some point? And if it is, what happened to this mysterious fourth sibling?
According to some fans, the answer is that he died at some point during the film. This sounds rather absurd, however, as we never see this unknown brother at any point in the film. It would be weird for everyone to simply ignore the fact that a friend or brother has just died. The voice is there, that much is clear — but why isn’t this brother ever shown on camera?
It could be that the Chipmunk family was so distraught by this death that they wanted to keep it secret, or maybe they didn’t want to burden their new audience with such sadness. Either way, it seems odd that this brother would not be shown, considering Dave (the Chipmunks’ adoptive father and manager) would want the most talking chipmunks in his band.
Of course, most of this theory has all the markings of the usual low-effort Alvin and the Chipmunks fan theory: a mysterious character, some violent context in children’s media… the list goes on. However, the idea that there might have been another character in an earlier draft of the live-action film sounds much more plausible.
Even though the cartoon might have avoided the introduction of a new character, maybe this trope would have worked better in the live-action flick. Considering the producers of the movie might have wanted as many Chipmunks as possible (voiced by some high-profile comedians, of course,) suddenly the idea of a fourth Chipmunk to play with Alvin seems like a great idea, from a marketing standpoint.
Do I believe there is a fourth chipmunk brother in the film that, for some nefarious reason, could no longer perform with his brothers? No, I don’t think so. Is it possible that there was a fourth Chipmunk in early drafts of the Alvin and the Chipmunks film, and that some songs were recorded with a fourth band member in mind? Yes, that sounds much more likely.
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What do you think? Do Alvin and the Chipmunks have a fourth brother?
